Day 4 – it’s supposed to be summer.

Run 50mins
Swim 3km
Bike 130km incl 16km race/KOM over Takaka hill

Before I start you can catch the McDonalds blogs on www.trimacca.com

It was always going to happen. Last night I was beaming after seeing the forecast for the next few days – clear, cloudless, warm days. What happened today - gentle rain pretty much all day, nice work met service!

When Mullie and I were doing the podcast earlier this evening I made the comment that there seems to be more easier riding on this camp but more hard stuff as well (ie less steady). Today was a good example of this. We biked to the base of the Takaka hill as a group (60km) then it was game on. The terminator did a sneaky attack away from the aid station while the rest of us were still waiting on the side of the road. I had no worries sitting on Chris’s wheel to pull us up to him before the start of the climb. The Takaka climb starts with a solid section of 9% then settles to about 7%, kicks again towards the top of the first section, a little plateaux then another 3km to the top. My plan was just to see how it felt and take it from as it came to me. I knew there were plenty of flatter sections where guys would try to recover, this is the time to close the gaps. There were a few attacks early on to settle the groups out with Mullie and Macca predictably heading off into the distance. Surprise, surprise Scott was glued to my wheel for pretty much the whole way up the climb and he sprinted past with about 200m to go, I think he gets plenty of satisfaction of outkicking me. Only one point separates us in the KOM and it’s about the same in GC but I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet. I was happy with 6th in the KOM feeling as good as could have been expected. Lou the fly has the performance of the day going over in 4th after spending almost the entire camp yo-yoing on and off the back of the bunch.

We’ve now arrived in Collinwood and have doubled the population of this tiny little village. This really is a great, remote part of New Zealand. Tomorrow we head for a run in the Heefy track and a nice open water swim.

It was great to see some of our walking wounded back on track today with Madwomen, the fish and Ian “ghost” Hersey all back on the bike.

There has been some talk about my posts potentially getting a little cryptic with all the nicknames so here’s what we have thus far
Scott Molina – the terminator
Bevan “Mullie” Eyles – he may have lost the mullet but the name sticks
Steven “madman” Lord - crazy volume
Jo “madwomen” Carrit – partner of Steven and equally mad
Del “the infringer” Pitcher – cop who got a speeding ticket from his kiwi counterparts
Ian “ghost” Hersey – this guy is seriously white and has to be super careful in our kiwi sun
Russell “cardboard” Cox – because he rides and runs with a very stiff body
Piet Hein “Mr Persistent” – on the first few days Piet sat persistently on the front at an uncomfortable speed for all of us except Chris
Marilyn McDonald “bike chic” – she’s no longer a triathlete, now trying her hand at bike racing
Dave “charlsey” Langley – good mates with Epic regular Andrew Charles and coming from Brisbane has borrowed most of his winter epic gear. Charlsey has also constantly been in his ear scaring him about the camp
Lou Di Guiseppe “Lou the fly” – has big tired eyes
Tara “the limpet” Norton – she just hangs in there all the time no matter what
Heath “the fish” Thurston – showing us all how to swim
Chris McDonald – who will now be referred at “the wind block” or Macca
Douglas “fat Albert” Scott – for a skinny kiwi he can generate some serious speed on the bike

I’ve got just a couple of go now